The passenger steamer Quaker City bound for Havana from New York suffered the loss of its engines in an explosion during the early morning hours and found itself leaking and adrift about fifty miles due east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The small bark Dunbarton appeared and took off most of the passengers, around 100 people. The Quaker City, threatened by heavy seas but still afloat, eventually was taken under tow and reached Norfolk on October 12. (By John Osborne)

Source Citation:

The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee and Company, 1861), 404.
"Accident to the Steamship Quaker City," New York Times, October 10, 1859, p. 4.